About this Event
Event guidelines:
- Each ticket will include either a copy of the featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card.
- Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
- A signing will follow the talk.
- Home address is collected for contact tracing purposes; it will not be used otherwise.
- The event will also be livestreamed for free here: https://youtube.com/live/RogrvDTDwXM
- As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.
If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected].
The highly anticipated new novel from the author of the Booker-shortlisted international sensation Crooked Plow.
Moisés lives with his father and sister in a Brazilian village dominated by the local monastery. His mother having died mysteriously, Moisés is raised by his sister Luzia, a young woman rumored to be a witch and despised by the villagers. Luzia seeks protection from the monastery, where she gets a job as a laundress and where Moisés receives an education. In time, something triggers her brother to rebel and run away from home. Luzia finds herself wholly alone, fighting for the family’s land and for her life. Unknown to her, Moisés, too, has put himself on the front line of an ancient conflict between colonial oppressors and the dispossessed.
Epic and lyrical, with the power to enchant as well as outrage, Saving the Fire presents the ghosts of a family’s past lost amid the shadows of a nation’s history. Masterfully, Itamar Vieira Junior blends the intimate journeys of his characters with faithfully rendered elements of Brazilian life in a world where the scars of colonialism still ache.
Itamar Vieira Junior was born in Salvador, Brazil, in 1979. He holds a doctorate in Ethnic and Africana Studies. His debut novel Crooked Plow won the 2018 LeYa Award (Portugal) and the 2020 Jabuti Award for Best Novel (Brazil). The book has sold over a million copies in Brazil, and the English translation was shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize. His second novel, Saving the Fire, won the 2024 Jabuti Award for Best Novel.
Radha Vatsal is the author of No. 10 Doyers Street and other historical mystery novels set in early 20th-century New York. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Lit Hub, Scroll.in, and elsewhere. She is the film & tv columnist for CrimeReads.
Event venue & nearby stays
Books Are Magic Montague, 122 Montague Street, Brooklyn, United States
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